


2009 the beginning of the end

by MeByAMile



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Game Novelization, Gen, Multi, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeByAMile/pseuds/MeByAMile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A group of kids are given one year. One year to prevent the world from catastrophe. This is a story about the things that happen within that one year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prelude

**Author's Note:**

> This is something that's been bouncing around in my head whilst playing through the game, so I decided to write it. Madoka is my version of the MC, so he's bound to be different then you might expect. Also fair warning the scene with Yukari and the Evoker is about to come up. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

You are nearing the end of a long ass trip to Port Island. Thankfully your trusty jube player and headphones have made the journey bearable thus far.

You're listening to Medolika's new album. A song about an ocean siren popped up. Appropriately enough for your current location. Said location being on a ferry in the ocean, obviously.

You've found a nice spot up on deck away from the other passengers. You've been watching the moon slowly rise from the waterline whilst jamming. The sounds of the ocean blend nicely with the track. You love when the universe blesses you with a perfect melody for a perfect moment.

Ah, music. You don't know what you would do without it. 

Probably go insane.

Music captivates you, it speaks to you in a way almost nothing else does.

 

Roughly 65% of your time is spent listening to music. You slip on your headphones whenever you're able, commuting between school and your place of residence, during lunch, you blast music into the washroom when you shower (something many a classmate has complained about), you put on light music when you study, your alarm wakes you with a custom play-list (also something your peers have complained about).

The thing is music helped get you through some rough times. Some really rough times. So what if people think you’re nigh religious respect for music is bizarre. Let them. Music has been your best friend for years. You don’t care what they think anyway.

A loud ferry horn jars you from your thoughts. You’ve arrived.

The island looks just as you remembered from the coast. Like an innocent peaceful paradise, green and lush. Except maybe more pristine and clear cut, it stings your eyes to look at. You shake your head as you realize you’re probably imagining it.

You wonder if this was really a wise idea. Well to late to go back on it now, at least not without trying.

Besides it’s not like you have many places to go, after getting booted from Seigō-sei due to . . _difficulties_ with dorm housing, all you had left was two schools you could go to. One of them being Gekkoukan the other being a boarding school in the middle of the mountains with a strict focus on academics and a no leaving campus policy. You’d be completely done with the place by the first saturday.

You shuffle along the ferry deck to the off ramp, getting swallowed by a sea of people. A crisp piano solo washes over your eardrums. You step onto the docks, people buzz past you as you stop to take everything in.

 

You didn’t spend much time here as a child but still you can tell the place has changed. More buildings dot the outlining of the docks, it seems busier but you could be wrong. The tacky poorly painted “Welcome To Port Island!” sign is gone, replaced by a professional logo. You wonder what else has changed.

You nab a town map from a kiosk, something else that’s new. For some reason all the street names are in french. It confused you when you were younger, but you figured it out enough to wander around your neighborhood and establish some haunts.You’ll have to go on your old route sometime.

You know it sounds silly, but for awhile now it’s felt like something is calling you back to Port Island, back to where it all began, where you began.

 

Your Uncle was concerned that it might be too much for you to handle. You told him you’d be fine. Now that you’re here you don’t quite know what to expect.

* * *

 

You’re in your room in the dark, the sun is setting outside. Akihiko-senpai has just given you a briefcase with a vital piece of equipment inside.

You examine the gun-like looking object in your hand. For something that looks and feels very much like a gun it isn’t one. It’s called an Evoker. SEES uses them to summon their battle personas.

You know it can’t harm you, not physically. Both of your Senpai have them, they use them on a regular basis and they’re just fine.

 

Your hand starts to shake. You use your other hand to help steady your gu-not gun Evoker.

The Evoker doesn’t fire bullets. It doesn’t fire anything. Except some sort of mystical energy and a shot of pure terror straight to your head.

You recall seeing Mitsuru Kirijo summon her persona, she raised her Evoker up to her head in a solid smooth motion. Closing her eyes and clicking the trigger without any sign of distress. Her head swayed like something had actually impacted with it. The sound of crystal shattering, glowing shards resonating from the opposite side of her head like- well like a gunshot wound to the head.

You take deep breathes attempting to calm yourself. It doesn’t work, your breathing becomes more shallow. Your legs feel weak. You more collapse than sit at the side of your bed, gun still in hand.

Yukari stop freaking yourself out, it’s just the summoner of a weapon. A weapon for you to use. To fight those creepy shadow things. You need to pull your weight. You don’t know what Kirijo will do if you don’t and you don’t want to find out.

 

You need to do this. You need to be a part of this team. It’s the only way you’ll ever get answers. You’re doing this for Dad.

“I just. . . put it to my head,” You say as you slowly raise the gun to the front of your forehead, you don’t want the thing where you can’t see it, with both your hands it feels like you’re moving underwater.

Dad.

“And pull the trigger. . . ” Your heart pounds in your chest. You tense the muscles of your finger and ready them to pull.

3 . . . 2 . . .  1!

Terror floods you. Everything is dark, and then everything is far too bright. You hear a metallic clattering.

 

Somewhere in your panic you realize that you had involuntarily closed your eyes. The noise was the sound of the evoker hitting the floor after you threw it.

Panic still pulses through you. Your eyes are watery. Your breath is heavy. You draw your arms around your knees and begin to silently sob.

* * *

 

While Port Island may look the same from afar the reality of actually walking around the place is much different. You were right the place is definitely more bustling than before, small island settlement turned metropolis.

There’s more road traffic and actual traffic stops, as well as more foot traffic. You’re once again thankful for your music player. It’s helpful in drowning out the excess clatter.

There are electronic billboards advertising juice with the help of scantily clad teenage girls. There’s a clown in ganguro (kinda insensitive) with three clown dogs. You think the street lamps might be the same except with different bulbs. You doubt they would glow the same way at night.

You make your way through the unnaturally muggy spring air to Gekkoukan only to be told that not only are the dorms not on campus they’re not even on the island itself. They’re on the mainland.

There’s a train that goes over the bay between the Tatsumi Mainland Isle and Port Island. So you walk to the train station. (You are never going on that bridge again.)

 

By the time you get there it’s 11:30. You took your time. Toured the points of interest along your route, the turning windmills, a family of ducks, a few sakura trees in bloom.

The train line is located downtown next to a flower shop and a movie theater. It’s a fairly nice station. Though the greeter they have outside the entrance creeps you out a little.

You have to wait 20 minutes for a train. You’re one of the few left at the station this late. 11:50 rolls around you hop yourself and your luggage onto the train. It takes off. You click on your jube player.

 

* * *

 

A butterfly, glowing blue surrounded by darkness, flaps it’s wings slowly steadily.

**Time never waits.**

**It delivers us all equally to the same end.**

**You, who wish to safeguard the future,**

**however limited it may be . . .**

**You will be given one year;**

**go forth without falter,**

**with your heart as your guide . . .**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's some songs I think fit with the work: comeback kid by sleighbells and osaka loop line by discovery is what madoka plays whilst on the train


	2. a creepy wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . it's been awhile. ^^; heh.

[Attention passengers we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by the delay.]

Gotta stop to go! Just stay low! Burn my dread!!

[The next stop is Iwa-] The steady beat of a butterfly’s wings, the steady beat of a rock song.

 

“Iwatodai.” Oh. That’s your destination. The sound of the train coming to a stop blends into your song. You mind the gap as you step off the train. You look up at the sign to double check that you’re in the right place. Tatsumi Isle, yup.

You scan your ticket at the turnstiles and walk through. You pause in your journey, pulling out your directions from your pocket.

 

Then your song abruptly stops. All the lights go out. Your jube player is dead. Everything powered by electricity in the area stops working. Did someone just set off an EMP?

Green light drips in from outside. Red fluid that looks an awful lot like blood drips down the stopped clock. What the fuck?

 

You sigh, unless someone comes and makes it your problem, it’s not your problem. Your footsteps echo loudly in the silence.

 

Outside everything is tinged with green, the sky, the clouds, the surrounding buildings.  The moon is huge, misshapen and ghostly yellow. It’s like it snuck up on the earth when you weren’t looking. You look around for signs of an impending tsunami or other disastrous events, but everything is unearthly still.

There are a bunch of solid black pedestal looking things laid out as far as the your eyes can see. The floor is black and white checkered like a chess table in the distance. As you walk closer it turns green like a mirage. You wonder if you somehow intook some sort of hallucinogenic substance. (You ignore the feeling that tells you that this is _very_ real.)

The power is off in town too, the stoplights have all stopped working. As you walk among the black figures you realize that they’re coffins turned upright. It’s mildly unsettling. Your footfalls echo louder. You look down at your folded up directions.

Everything will make more sense once you arrive at the dorm and get some sleep. (No, it won’t.)

 

Just as you find the right building, a brick layered rectangular with latticed windows and wide windowed double doors,  you trudge into a large puddle of red liquid. It’s sticky and squishes under your shoe. You’ll have to clean that later.

You take the handle of one door in your hand and pull. When you step inside you realize the reason for the windows brightness, the lights are on inside. This building has power.

A few old beatup leather chairs and couches sit in the corner of the room a scuffed up table in the middle of them. A tv by a glass partition and what looks like a dining area beyond it. A reception desk with rosy pink flowers sits to your left.

 

You take your headphones off. “You’re late. I’ve been waiting a long time for you.” Someone to your left says. You turn your head towards their voice.

You’re met with the sight of a pale young boy with black hair unnerving blue eyes and a beauty mark on the right side of his face. He’s wearing a black and white striped uniform like old styled prison garb. He has both his hands making fists under his chin propping himself up against the desk.

The boy snaps his fingers. “Now if you want to proceed,” Before you know what’s happening the boy is standing next you on the other side of the desk. “Please sign your name there.” He opens his palm to you and gestures to a red booklet with a quill and an inkwell sitting next to it.

“It’s a contract.” The books flips open in a gust of wind revealing as the boy says a contract. “Don’t worry all it says is that you’ll accept full responsibility for your actions.” The boy explains.

 

His words cut through you and make you ask yourself what you’ve been doing with your life up to this point. The way you’ve been acting, your parents would want-NO. You’re not doing this right now. “-The usual stuff.”

It’s just a stupid dorm contract, sign the damn thing. You write Madoka Suzuki in neat kanji.

 

The boy picks up the contract. “No one can escape time. It delivers us all to the same end.” The boy says cryptically sage. He raises the red booklet. He covers his right eye with it.

“You can’t plug your ears, and cover your eyes.” He seems to be speaking directly to you, like he knows you. He twists the booklet to the side and it disappears into thin air, a weird noise cuts through the room.

The boy bows his head to you. A shadow starts creeping up behind him, he outstretches his hand towards you. The shadow starts swallowing him and the room whole, eating up his arm. “And so it begins.” Is the last thing you hear him say.

 

You’re left alone in a dark green tinted room with no power. Definitely seeing things. (No, it was real.)

“Who’s there?!” A female voice screams. What _now_?

 

A girl in pink stands behind the partition, slightly shrouded in shadow. She seems tense, beads of sweat roll down her face. She takes one step forward and reaches for something strapped to her leg.

 

You yourself tense as your realize what it is, a gun holster. She starts breathing in and out rapidly. Great a scared person with a gun, that’s just what you needed right now. She grabs for the gun.

 

“Takeba wait!” Another women says. The girl in pink turns around in surprise. Behind her stands a red haired woman in a school uniform, she also has a gun. Except she doesn’t even bother trying to hide hers. She stands hand on her hip with the holster proudly hung across her waist.

 

And then the power comes back on, your jube player starts again, the green atmosphere recedes and the yellow hue of the inside lights takes over. You stand there in shock.

The girl in pink makes a pleased noise at the redhead’s arrival. The woman’s face softens a tad yet remains mostly stern. You then regain the sense to click off your music.

 

The redheaded woman walks forward to join the other girl. “I didn’t think you’d arrive so late.” She says casually. Like her cohort didn’t just almost pull a gun on you, like she doesn’t have one herself. You decide to play along, after all they have the guns.

“My name is Mitsuru Kirijo. I’m one of the students who live in this dorm.” She introduces herself. Well this will be among one of the more interesting places you’ve lived.

The girl in pink looks between you and the redhead. “Who’s he?” She asks Kirijo.

“He’s a transfer student. It was a last minute decision to assign him here.” Kirijo explains for you. “He’ll eventually be moved to a room in the boys dorm.” Kirijo focuses on the other girl while saying all of this. You get the impression that you’re missing something.

 

But never mind that, girls’ dorm?! Did something go wrong with the papers again? What if they expel me? (Things worse than expulsion could happen if they find out.)

Chill. You’re apparently gonna be moved to a boys’ dorm. You don’t know anything for sure yet and they don’t seem to know anything. Just play it by ear.

 

“Is it okay for him to be here?” The girl in pink asks Kirijo. You’d be more upset by her blatant disregard for you but she doesn’t seem to be talking about the fact that you’re a male.

“I guess we’ll see . . .” Kirijo says with a knowing smile, still talking to the other girl. Her words don’t help put your nerves at ease, they don’t unsettle them either.

 

They finally turn to look at you. Oh, so now you’re a part of this conversation. 

“This is Yukari Takeba.” Kirijo gestures to the girl in pink. You nod your understanding.

“She’ll be a junior this spring, just like you.” Kirijo exposites. You nod again, not knowing how else to respond.

 

“Hey.” Takeba says hesitantly, she does a small bow.

“Hi . . . It’s nice to meet the both of you.” You go for the diplomatic approach.

“A pleasure.”

“Uh y-yeah . . . Nice to meet you too . . ”

 

You all sit in silence for a couple beats. “So, this is the girl’s dorm?” You hope your attempt at subtle information gathering doesn’t come out as odd.

“No it’s not but . . .” That’s not what Kirijo said earlier. “Um how should I explain it . .?” Takeba looks nervously to her dormmate for help.

“Unlike most student dorms this one’s co-ed. It’s not your typical dorml though.” You had already guessed that. “I’ll explain it you later when I get a chance.” You get the feeling few of the answers you actually want will come. (What the fuck even is this night?)

You’re going to get at least one answer tonight. You decide that they’re unlikely to shoot you now that they’ve introduced themselves and welcomed you. (Hopefully.)

“So, what’s with the guns?” Okay so you perhaps could have worded that better.

 

“Huh?” Takeba grunts sounding genuinely confused, it seems that she’s forgotten she’s armed.

Kirijo opens her mouth to say something, but Takeba’s mumbling cuts her off. “Well, it’s sorta like a hobby . . .”

She stretches out the words unsure of herself. “Well not a hobby, but-. .” Kirijo who has been appraising the other girl, decides to jump in. “You know how it is these days . . .”

 

You slightly raise a brow at her. No, no you don’t know how it is these days.

“It’s for self defense.” Kirijo justifies. You guess that could be understandable, but is crime here really _that_ bad? Also how did they get carry permits? ( They probably don’t have them.)

“It’s not a real gun of course.” Kirijo continues with that smile from earlier. Despite everything you get the feeling that she’s telling the truth, but not the whole truth.

 

You want to ask more questions but before you can, “It’s getting late so you should get some rest.” Kirijo announces with a soft finality. You want to argue but your tiredness wins over your curiosity.

“Your room is on the second floor, at the end of the hallway. Your things should already be there.” She predominantly keeps her gaze on Takeba while saying this.

“Things?” You head nod towards your pack.

“A bed, a dresser, and other amenities, as well as your school uniform.”

“Oh.”

 

Kirijo looks expectantly at Takeba. Takeba glances at her. “Oh . . I’ll show you the way. Follow me.” She says with a just barely forced cheeriness.

You loosen your shoulders which are sore from walking and standing around with this pack for so long. You follow Takeba up two flights of marble-esque spiral stairs, looking around at the patterned grey walls and the darkwood as you go.

A plain brown rug with light trim is placed throughout the dorm. The floor is green with beige pixely speckles. The lamps are all the same style. Your current floor holds five rooms, the first held six.

 

Takeba leads you to the very end of the hall. She waits by the last door on the right. “This is it . . Pretty easy to remember, huh? . . Since it’s right at the end of the hall.” She says it like she’s delivering a joke.

“Oh yeah make sure you don’t lose your key, or you’ll never hear the end of it.” She speaks again before you could respond in any fashion. There’s a story or two behind that.

“So, any questions?” Actually yeah you do want to check something.

 

“Does that kid live here too?” You ask eyes trained on her face. Her brow furrows.

“What kid?” You keep your face and your stare level.

“Ya know, the kid. At the front desk.” She looks at you even more askance.

“What are you talking about?” She sounds confused but somewhat defensive. You decide to press her more.

“Blue eyes, black and white striped uniform, ringing any bells?”

Her apprehensiveness increases. “. . . C’mon, it’s not funny.” She thinks you’re playing a joke. Takeba doesn’t seem to know what you’re talking about.

 

“Nevermind, it’s was nothing.” You tell her, her eyebrows raise but she lets the subject drop along with her eyes. Looking at the floor she seems to be contemplating something.

“Um . . . Can I ask you something?” She drags her gaze back up to you.

“Sure.”

“On your way here from the station, was everything okay?” It seems an innocuous enough of a question, but the way she asked it.

 

You think about all the weird things that have happened since your train ride over here. The way the world around you had transformed into some creepy twisted wonderland of sorts. That mysterious boy. The contract. (What was it for? What’s the meaning of all of it?)

You don’t think you can tell Takeba about any of that, even if she knows more than she’s letting on. (Perhaps especially if she knows more.)

 

“What do you mean?” You decide to dig for more info.

“You know what I--” She starts exasperatedly but cuts herself off upon looking at your blank face.

“. . . Nevermind.” It’s doesn’t look like you’ll be getting any more information tonight.

 

Takeba seems lost in thought for a few moments. “It seems like you’re alright.” You slowly nod. Why wouldn’t you be? (Is that why they have the guns?)

 

“Well I better get going. .” She points to her room down the hallway. You turn to watch her leave, Takeba notices. “Um. .” She pauses and turns back towards you.

“I’m sure you still have other questions,” No kidding. “But let’s save them for later, okay?”

You nod, you’re tired and nothing about this night makes any sense. Part of you is perfectly okay leaving it that way. (But something bigger is going on here. Something you can’t avoid forever.)

“Good night.” You say to her. She smiles and returns your pleasantry then walks off down the hall.

 

You open the door to your temporary room. It has a sink and a mirror, a study desk, the aforementioned bed and dresser and some shelves. It’s pretty spartan. Just the way you like it.

You set your pack down by the bed and change out of your clothes and into a t-shirt and sweatpants, click on your lullaby playlist, then you slip into bed and attempt to get some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Madoka listens to as he falls asleep is Pluto by Sleeping at Last.

**Author's Note:**

> here's some songs I think fit with the work: comeback kid by sleighbells and osaka loop line by discovery is what madoka plays whilst on the train


End file.
